http://github.com/dylang/node-rssGatsbyJSWed, 04 Sep 2019 21:53:57 GMThttps://frhumphries.com/posts/another-redesign/https://frhumphries.com/posts/another-redesign/Wed, 04 Sep 2019 12:00:00 GMT<h3>TL;DR</h3>
<p>The short answer that I’m cheap and my blog is really simple. Since I finished my Sabbatical, I haven’t had any cause to use my blog except for the parish bulletin.</p>
<p>This much simpler and easier to use redesign is actually built in Gatsby on top of React and GraphQL. It’s a fully implemented PWA with really great scores on all the audits, especially A11Y. </p>
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</p>https://frhumphries.com/posts/slightly-ocd-guide-to-prayer/https://frhumphries.com/posts/slightly-ocd-guide-to-prayer/Wed, 16 Jan 2019 22:40:32 GMT<p>By it’s nature, prayer is relational and organic. It’s not a set of skills to master. All of the best books and studies on prayer begin by reminding the reader not to approach prayer mechanically. This guide, then, is not about how to pray - it’s about understanding the vocabulary and the component parts of what is known formally as Spiritual Theology.</p>
<h2>What is Prayer?</h2>
<p>Prayer is the lifting of the heart and the mind to God. Whatever the form, when we consciously turn to the Lord, we are praying. Some people will add conditions of focus, attention or sincerity to their definition. They’ll say, “I wasn’t really praying because I was distracted.” While that kind of distinction may be helpful in spiritual direction or some other context, it’s dangerous to associate what prayer is with what I get out of prayer. Many of the great spiritual masters will often talk about prayer as “useless” in the sense of accomplishing something in this world. Prayer isn’t a means to an end, it’s spending time with the Lord.</p>
<h2>Types \ Flavors of Prayer</h2>
<p>There are three fundamental types of personal prayer: conversation, meditation and contemplation. Above these is the public prayer of the Church that we call the Sacred Liturgy which revolves around the seven Sacraments and is thus more essential for our salvation and the salvation of others than our own personal prayer.</p>
<p>The Sacramentals of the Church like the Rosary also have their part to play in prayer even if they are technically covered already by the categories of Conversation and Meditation.</p>
<p>Prayer which is meant to accompany something else in the spiritual life is also important. The prayerful reading of a spiritual book is called <em>lectio divina.</em> The prayerful consideration of a big decision over the course of time is called <em>discernment.</em> Prayers which lead to or include supernatural phenomenon like seeing the Lord, the saints or angels (<em>apparition</em>), hearing them (<em>locution</em>), etc are collectively called <em>mystical</em> prayers. These are given specially and specifically to an individual for a purpose. Each of these is surely important, but they’re beyond the scope of this guide.</p>
<p>Finally, I’m not going to go into the multitude of devotional prayers which include Charismatic prayer, hymns and songs as prayer, so-called Centering prayer and any number of other categories and sub-categories of private prayer. They may well be helpful in the spiritual life, but they tend to defy categorization.</p>
<h3>Conversation</h3>
<p>Most prayer begins with conversation: speaking to God. Of course, the Lord knows our needs and our desires better than we do… Still, vocalizing those needs and desires - either aloud or mentally - orients us and helps us to bring our relationship with the Lord into the flow of our prayer time.</p>
<h4>Vocal &#x26; Mental Prayer</h4>
<p>Vocal prayer is the name we give to any prayer which is spoken aloud.</p>
<p>Mental prayer, then, is the name we give to any prayer which could be spoken aloud but it retained within our minds as part of our internal monologue.</p>
<h4>Rote &#x26; Spontaneous Prayer</h4>
<p>Rote prayer is the name we give to prayers whose structures are composed to be prayed in that form. The Our Father was given to us by Jesus to be prayed in that way using basically those words. Translations may make minor adjustments, but the prayer is meant to be said from memory or from a text.</p>
<p>Spontaneous prayer, then, is the name we give to prayers which are not taken directly from a text.</p>
<p>Of course, there’s no need to be strict in distinguishing rote from spontaneous prayer. Many prayers improvise on the themes or outlines of rote prayers as a way of making them one’s own. For example, one might say a modified act of contrition before bedtime: ”<em>Lord Jesus, I’m sorry for the way I spoke to my spouse this evening. I know it offends you who are good and deserving of my love. I firmly intend, with your Grace, to go to confession soon and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.</em>”</p>
<h4>The Our Father</h4>
<p>The Our Father is generally considered to be the ideal structure for personal, conversational prayer. It begins with <strong>praise</strong> (<em>Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.</em>), continues with <strong>submission</strong> (<em>Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven</em>), then moves to <strong>intercession</strong> (<em>give us this day our daily bread</em>), then asks for <strong>forgiveness</strong> (<em>forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us</em>) and ends with <strong>spiritual warfare</strong> (<em>but lead us not into temptation</em>). Many saints, most clearly St. Augustine, have proposed that the Our Father is an ideal model for personal prayer.</p>
<h3>Meditation</h3>
<p>Meditation happens when we stop talking to the Lord and begin to listen. Obviously, there will be overlap between conversational prayer and meditation. A busy mind may bring us back to conversation over and over while we are trying to meditate.</p>
<p>The ideal meditation takes place in total quiet by simply waiting with the Lord, but that disposition of mind is harder and harder to cultivate in the busyness of this world. As such, we can turn to scripture, to the mysteries of our Faith and to meditations written by others to orient our meditational prayer.</p>
<p>Typically, meditation will begin with some conversation to settle our hearts and put into a disposition of mind which is conducive to quiet. Then, we ask the Lord to help us hear His voice speaking to us in the quiet. Then, we take up our meditation text and read through it slowly. If we are struck by some word, phrase or idea, we stop and let it speak to us. If we get distracted, we ask the Lord to settle us again and go back to our text.</p>
<p>The most important thing to remember about meditation is that we are not trying to learn something from our text, we are merely using it to help ourselves listen to the Lord speaking to us. (When prayer accompanies study, we call that <em>lectio divina.</em>)</p>
<h4>Scripture</h4>
<p>Meditation on Scripture usually involves choosing a narrative passage. The story of Jesus walking on water, for example, is usually better than a passage from Leviticus about which animals should be sacrificed in this or that context. The Gospels tend to be the best place to start unless a spiritual director recommends another specific passage.</p>
<h4>Mysteries of Faith</h4>
<p>The Mysteries of Faith are the name we give to all of the core beliefs of Catholicism which are beyond our human capacity to understand fully. They are not mysteries in the sense of Sherlock Holmes where an answer simply hasn’t been found. They are mysteries in the sense that the Holy Trinity - where Three Divine Persons indwell One Eternal Godhead - simply can’t be comprehended by our minds. Topics like the Holy Trinity, the Two Natures of Jesus, Eternal Reward, Purgatory, forgiveness, the Holy Eucharist, the “birth of God”, the “death of God” and the like are excellent topics to orient our minds toward the Lord and to allow Him to speak to us in the quiet of our hearts.</p>
<h4>Guided Meditations</h4>
<p>Guided meditations are a dime a dozen in the modern world and can be found in books, online or in our Spam folders. They are potentially very helpful in that they might be written for a circumstance particular to you. For example, there may be a meditation about folks with marital trouble or a physical disability. On the other hand, they can be written by anyone and nowadays a title like FR. or even BP. in front of a name doesn’t guarantee us anything in terms of that person standing by the Faith of Jesus Christ. In a world where we have the Scriptures and we have the Mysteries of Faith, I recommend strongly against the use of any guided meditation from anyone who doesn’t have ST. in front of their name.</p>
<h3>Contemplation</h3>
<p>The highest order of personal prayer is contemplation. Contemplation is meditation without any intellectual component at all. It’s not about hearing the Lord, it’s about being with the Lord. This is the prayerful analogue of a long-married couple sitting together in a comfortable silence. As I noted above, we shouldn’t be too quick to criticize ourselves if we can’t get to contemplation right away. It takes a real, regular prayer life to sit quietly and comfortably with the Lord. Contemplation is the goal of the private spiritual life and it’s meant for everyone, not just spiritual masters.</p>
<h3>Liturgical Prayer</h3>
<p>The prayers and rituals which surround the Sacraments surpass even the most saintly personal spiritual life. The Sacraments are <strong>the</strong> fundamental means of Grace in the world and the Lord conveys by them a Grace more potent than the most dramatic exorcism or the most mystical saint story. In an ideal spiritual life, the Sunday Mass (with Holy Communion received in a state of Grace) will fuel our personal prayers through the week and those prayers will make our next reception of Holy Communion (again, in a state of Grace) all the more potent and spiritual beneficial. This cycle of the Holy Eucharist being both a source and a summit of our personal spiritual lives goes back to the earliest understanding of the Church at prayer.</p>
<h3>Sacramentals</h3>
<p>Those physical items which are blessed and which become a vessel of grace to us are called Sacramentals. A rosary conveys a blessing and assists us in the prayer of the Rosary which is easily the most powerful of all rote prayer. Holy Water reminds us of our baptism and provides real protection in the spiritual realm.</p>
<h2>And thus</h2>
<p>This little guide is meant, remember, more as a glossary than a how-to. For more excellent resources on the beginnings of the Spiritual life, I strongly recommend Fr. Thomas Dubay’s Prayer Primer.</p>https://frhumphries.com/posts/ups-and-downs-of-personality-priests/https://frhumphries.com/posts/ups-and-downs-of-personality-priests/Mon, 07 Jan 2019 22:40:32 GMT<p>Most of the Saints that we know about were popular. Of course, there are far more saints that we don’t know about than those we do. Still, popular priests and bishops are no rarity in history. When the modern media came into its own, American-born Fulton Sheen was there to step in and bridge the gap between the ordinary Joe and Jane American and the Roman Catholic Church.</p>
<p>The internet isn’t really any different. In the past few years, a few priests and bishops have risen to be the cream of the crop in terms of likes, followers and downloads. Bishop Robert Barron established his <a href="%5Bhttps://www.wordonfire.org%5D">Word on Fire</a> program when he was the rector of Mundelein Seminary. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf and his blog <a href="http://www.wdtprs.com">What Does the Prayer Really Say?</a> came to prominence as Pope Benedict XVI re-opened the door to the Traditional Latin Mass. Fr. James Martin exploded onto the scene to exploit off the cuff remarks made by Pope Francis. There are plenty of others. Priests in my area like Fr. Joshua Johnson have local celebrity status online. Surely, there are plenty of other “famous” priests and bishops who have gained their notoriety in a more old-fashioned way like Fr. Jonathan Morris (appearing on TV news), Bp. Charles Chaput (authoring books) and Bp. Athanasius Schneider (public speaking).</p>
<p>But fame isn’t good in itself and in a time when knowledge is power, we have to remember that power corrupts. There’s a danger to being popular and to having an audience for one’s every thought, musing and kitty cat meme. So what are the ups and the downs of priests with online personalities and what’s verdict?</p>
<h2>The Ups</h2>
<p>We have to say that there can be great value when a priest gains an audience. St. Paul reminds us in Romans 10 that no one can hear unless there’s someone to preach to them. If youtube-fame or a random retweet gets the gospel in front of someone who otherwise never hears it, well that seems like a win.</p>
<p>I can also speak from experience that statistics which my generation (I was born in 1979) don’t value much at all are genuinely important to other generations. I was slow in earning credibility with the kids in my Confirmation preparation group when I first arrived in the parish… So I told them I would cancel all of the remaining classes and let them be confirmed without any further instruction or obligations if they - all together - had more twitter followers than me. They laughed and took out their phones to start the tally. They came up with about 1200 followers. I told them username and I was met with silence when they realized that I, indeed, had more followers by a wide margin than all of them. Silly as it may seem, that statistic had at least as much role to play in earning credibility with that group as anything I had said until that point. Twenty years ago, showing them a book that I had written or an album I had released would have had a similar effect. Sixty years ago, a velum certificate from an out of state college would do the job. Now, those numbers are a real measure of credibility.</p>
<p>Social Media - with it’s near infinite content - is a real war for attention. When someone wants to know the real story with something, the modern mind looks more for consensus than for real study or evidence of experience. Given the choice between someone who has the right answer on a boring website with six slashes in the URL that requires three clicks to read and someone who has two-hundred likes on a tweet that can be read in five seconds, there really isn’t going to be much competition. When a “personality” priest speaks, the fact that his name and his face and his username are familiar plays right into the natural tendency within us to prefer the familiar. Of course, in the past when priests stayed in a parish for years, the local pastor, often through sheer force of familiarity, gained real local credibility without needing a single other credential.</p>
<p>So, when a priest or a bishop becomes a “personality” and uses that tool to teach the truth, they are operating in a long tradition of saints - canonized and unknown alike. That’s a real upside.</p>
<h2>The Downs</h2>
<p>Our Lady - at Fatimá and Akita - told us to be on the lookout for priests and bishops who will teach error and lead many to Hell. There are plenty of priests - online and in real life - who have cheated the faithful for years of the truth about contraception, abortion, the nature of sin, the real meaning of God’s mercy, personal judgment and justification, ecumenism and whether or not Heaven is automatic… And we can see the effects of those deceptions… Fewer than 1 in 5 Catholics goes to Mass on Sunday. Of that small number, fewer than 1 in 5 makes an annual Confession and so about 5% or so of Catholics are doing the bare minimum, basic standard of being Catholic that we call the Precepts of the Church. The number of Catholics who believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and in the necessity of Jesus for Salvation and in the necessity of Forgiveness of Sin for Salvation is horrifying small. The number of Catholics who believe anything other than other local people on essential moral matters like abortion, regular worship and sexual morality is almost nil. Those Catholics who do are almost all located in communities where that belief happens to the be the norm.</p>
<p>And so, when a “personality” priest uses his notoriety to continue or worsen this crisis in the Church, he not only endangers souls, but he damages the work of all other priests trying to do the right thing.</p>
<p>We need only look to the infamous Cdl. Cupich who went on national television and on twitter to tell the nation that the recent horrifying realities of Former-Cardinal McCarrick were just a “rabbit hole” and that climate change was a far more important topic for us to focus on…</p>
<h2>The Verdict</h2>
<p>So do the pros outweigh the cons? Well, the command of Jesus is to proclaim the Gospel to all the world in all generations until He comes back. And so even if we find ourselves in a country with a state-controlled media and propgranda-driven internet restrictions, we are obliged to use the gifts that we have to proclaim the Gospel.</p>
<p>Priests aren’t excepted from that command. Actually, if and when a priest becomes a personality, the temptations might be far greater than they are on the laity. A famous lay Catholic may well stay clear of this or that issue or topic… But a priest is obliged, as a vicar of Jesus Christ to take the Gospel everywhere… He is bound by duty and by being an <em>alter Christus</em> to speak the truth in season and out of season. And when that’s unpopular, he has to be willing to risk his likes and his follower count and his downloads to teach the truth, even when people don’t want to hear it.</p>
<p>So the verdict is simple and clear. Yes, all Catholics and all Priests are bound to use whatever gifts and talents are at their disposal to share the Love and Truth of Jesus with others. But let’s all remember to pray for those people - lay and clergy - who find themselves in the public eye… <em>To whom much is given, much will be expected.</em></p>https://frhumphries.com/posts/why-take-a-sabbatical/https://frhumphries.com/posts/why-take-a-sabbatical/Mon, 02 Jul 2018 22:40:32 GMT<p>When I was ordained as a priest thirteen years ago, the landscape of what it meant to be a pastor was remarkably different. My dream was to be sent to some backwoods little town as a pastor and to be there until my successor lowered me into the ground. The ideal of priesthood that Pope St. John Paul II put forward was that of a little French saint named Jean Vianney. St. Jean, who is better known by his title - the Cure d’Ars (lit. <em>The Pastor of Ars</em>), was generally average. He wasn’t particularly smart or savvy or anything else. All he had was a genuine love for God and a sincere belief that everyone needed the Church. He served in a small town of farmers right after Napoleon had done his best to destroy the Church. St. Jean poured his energy into preaching and into hearing confessions. For the first ten years, the people were so affronted by his unwavering zeal and challenging preaching that they threw rotten fruit through the windows of his house! After twenty-five years, the government had to build a new railroad into Ars because tens of thousands of people were traveling there to see the saintly priest and to go to confession. St. John served his one and only parish for more than forty years and he’s buried right there in the town that he served. That was my dream when I drove to the Cathedral on May 21, 2005 for my Ordination as a Priest.</p>
<p>But… Nowadays priests tend to get moved around constantly. Every six or twelve years - whether things are going well or not - we shuffle all of the priests. It’s hard on the parishes and it’s a nightmare for the priests. It’s hard to feel like a spiritual family when you have a new father every few years and it’s hard to be a spiritual father when you know you’re going to be divorced from your family just as you get to know and love them. What’s more, the first complaint or letter that gets made about father’s latest sermon or decision and he’s promptly moved along so as to keep the peace… Whatever the reason for these modern structures and whatever their merits, the life of the priest has changed dramatically in the last few decades.</p>
<p>Nowadays, I find myself looking less to St. Jean Vianney and more to St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis Xavier. The early Jesuits were less stable in their lives and more pilgrim-like. They were good pastors and they managed to be good pastors despite a near constant changeover in their circumstances. That kind of ministry requires a different way of thinking, though. It requires a different perspective on the Church and on the local Parish and on the kind of choices and programs and initiatives that I would establish in the Church to which I am assigned.</p>
<p>My main impetus for this Sabbatical, then, is to embrace the pilgrim lifestyle intensely enough to help me make this kind of transition in perspective. I’m thinking of it in the same way that a student of a language would immerse himself in some place where that language - and only that language - is spoken.</p>
<h3>Re-tuning my Perspective</h3>
<p>There’s something to be said for the outside point of view. After all, the frog in the pot which is slowly heated may well find himself boiling without realizing that the big picture of his situation has changed… I’ve been priesting now for thirteen years. If I include my time in Seminary, half of my life has been spent in active, mostly non-stop ministry. While I can’t say that I’m tired, dissatisfied or in any way unhappy with my life, I can say that I notice myself losing some of my broader perspective.</p>
<p>It’s shocking how quickly I was able to say to myself, “I can’t remember my life before I was a priest.” It’s also shocking how hard it is to keep in my mind what life is like for someone who isn’t a priest. I have to remind myself frequently of what the life of a parent or a widow or a student or an employee or a retiree is like. Of course, reminding myself isn’t the same as living that life, but it’s an essential part of the perspective that I need to be a good priest. BUT - here’s the challenging part - most people are anxious about telling their pastor the real circumstances of their lives! I know we all think that we’re really ready to open up. I know that some people have been wonderfully frank with me. But, at a certain point, none of us are totally honest with the people around us. Everyone wants to put their best foot forward and that’s ok. But as a priest, part of my continuing education is tuning and re-tuning my perspective so that when I preach or teach or counsel, I’m speaking the <em>good things that men need to hear</em> and not merely yammering.</p>
<h3>Fasting is Easy, Feasting not so Much</h3>
<p>The third big reason for this Sabbatical is to celebrate in a genuine way, my fortieth birthday. As my poor mother can tell you, I’m not great at celebrating. She buys me wonderful presents and I smile and nod and say thank you and then put them down and stare off to infinity. I am not a fan of being the center of attention and I don’t show emotion freely in public. It’s just not me. Still, I want to celebrate my 40th. Partly, I want to do that for me. But moreso, I want to celebrate it for the people around me. I want my parents to know how much I love them. I want my friends to know how much they mean to me. I want to take this moment in my life as an opportunity to be thankful in an outward way to God for the blessed life He’s given me and my friends and family are a huge part of that reality!</p>https://frhumphries.com/posts/peregrinations/https://frhumphries.com/posts/peregrinations/Mon, 25 Jun 2018 22:12:03 GMT<h3>Redesigns</h3>
<p>Redesigns are more fun than a kitten that swallowed a squeaky ball for <a href="https://www.fatherchrisdecker.com/">Fr. Chris Decker</a>. Not so much for me. I haven’t made any meaningful changes to my blog in about two years and I wouldn’t have done without some coercion.</p>
<p>In about five weeks, I’ll be flying to Europe to spend three solid months on pilgrimage. I’ll be hiking the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_de_Santiago">Camino de Santiago</a>. I’ll be visiting some of the great Churches of Europe. And I’ll be taking quite a lot of time for prayer and for asking the questions that tend to get lost in the busyness of being a priest for Jesus Christ.</p>
<h3>Don’t Fret</h3>
<p>Of course, this isn’t a hint-hint, wink-wink euphemism for some kind of mid-life crisis - it’s a genuine opportunity to reflect upon my first decade or so of priesthood and to consciously, dare I say, deliberately posture myself for the coming years.</p>
<p>The shift in design should help to highlight the next six months of my life which will be some of the hardest work I’ve ever had to do. It’s one thing to upend one’s life and do something like this straight out of college. It’s entirely another to step away from a very happy life into ninety days of the unknown…</p>
<p>I hope those of you who choose to follow my blog and social graph during that time enjoy what you see and read and that you offer prayers for me along the way!</p>
<p>¡El Viaje!</p>